If you're looking for the cutesy tone of the film, or even its recent live-action re-make, look elsewhere, you won't find it here. You might be better off with [b:The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh|99110|The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1-4)|A.A. Milne|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348659236s/99110.jpg|17121965].

I had forgotten that several of the tales collected here are not about Mowgli, or the Jungle or even India in some cases and the Second Jungle Book focuses more on Mowgli than the first. Those non-Mowgli stories are not necessarily bad, though, and perhaps my favourite story from both books is The Undertakers, about a crocodile, crane and jackal. The North Polar story is perhaps second.

There's a detectable tone of arrogant superiority both of humans over animals and the English over Indians that is unsurprising from Kipling, who was very much of his era in this regard, but it wasn't strong enough to spoil the fun for me.